BEAUTIFUL SCENERY.

The cave was situated in an exceedingly picturesque position, it occupied the corner leading from a wide valley to a narrow ravine, down which came bubbling along a clear deep stream, which passed within a few yards of the cave’s mouth.  After making sketches of the paintings and for a few minutes admiring this romantic spot we moved up the ravine, which appeared to lead by a gradual ascent to the summit of the mountain range that now completely hemmed us in both to the southward and eastward.

This ravine, in the luxuriance of its vegetation and the great size of the trees, as well as in its rapid stream, at times leaping in cascades or foaming in rapids, resembled those we had before seen in the sandstone ranges, but it differed from them in the greater height of the surrounding hills and cliffs which, being overshadowed with hanging trees and climbing plants, presented as rich a painting as the eye could behold:  and, as these grew golden with the rays of the setting sun or were thrown into deep and massive shadows, I could not but regret that no Claude of the tropics had arisen to transfer to canvas scenes which words cannot express.

But however beautiful the scenery was the road we had to travel was so extremely inconvenient that the view scarcely made amends for it; we were continually compelled from old land-slips to cross from one side of the stream to the other, and this, from the depth of the ford and the slipperiness of the rocky bottom, was sometimes no easy task; moreover the ravine continued rapidly to contract in width and to become more rugged and precipitous; I therefore turned off to the right into a rocky amphitheatre which seemed well suited for encamping, and halted the party for the night; then, taking one of my men with me, I ascended the cliffs to see if I could make out any line by which to get clear of the precipices which embarrassed us, but on all sides I could descry nothing but lofty hills and frowning crags, except in the direction of the ravine which appeared to run directly into the heart of the mountain chain; I therefore turned about to rejoin the party, with the intention of continuing the same course the ensuing morning as we had done this evening.

NARROW ESCAPE.

Both myself and the man who was with me had however a narrow escape of being shot, for, as we were returning he let his rifle fall and it exploded, the ball striking the rocks close to us before it glanced into the air.

OTHER CAVES.

March 30.

At the earliest dawn we continued our course up the valley, which rapidly became narrower and more inclined so that it formed, as it were, a series of elevated terraces, at the edge of each of which was a little cascade.  We found two caves in the cliffs on the right hand, both of which were painted all over but with no regularity of pattern:  the only colours used were red, yellow, and white.  The largest of the caves exceeded in breadth and depth any others I had seen, but it was only three feet high; in this one there were several drawings of fish, one of which was four feet in length; these I copied, although they were badly executed.  The caves themselves cannot be considered as at all analogous to those I have before described.